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National Colleges. 



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SPEECH 




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HON. JUSTIN S. MOERILL; 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, DECEMBER 5, 1872. 



The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, pro- 
ceeded to consider the bill (S. No. 693) to provide for 
the further endowment and support of colleges for 
the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts, 
and the liberal and practical education of the in- 
dustrial classes in the several pursuits and profes- 
sions in life, as established under an act of Congress 
approved July 2, 1862. 

Mr, MORRILL, of Vermont, said : 

Mr. President : The present bill is intended 
to be so guq,rded that it shall injure no State, 
while it aims to confer positive benefits upon 
all. The land States, so called, have been and 
are properly jealous about having large tracts 
of land "gobbled up," so to say, by specula- 
tors, and withheld indefinitely from settlement. 
This bill is framed, as now modified, so as to 
avoid any such result, though, to obviate this 
really valid objection, the friends of the meas- 
ure will be compelled to sacrifice something 
of promptitude as well as of eflSciency. 

The power under the original law, to which 
this bill comes in as a supplement, to sell 
scrip and locate the same in large bodies, was 
perhaps created, and in a few instances may 
have been injuriously exercised; but the 
whole amount issued up to 1871, under the 
college land act, was only 7,636,588 acres; 
and 1,461,157 acres of this was located by ten 
of the States within their own boundaries, 
and if they hold on for dear prices, no other 
parties can be blamed; while the grants for 
military services, open to the same objections, 
have been eight or nine times larger, or to the 
extent of 62,115,202 acres. In point of fact, 
the evils so much dreaded have been, if not 
exaggerated, in good part mistakenly imputed 
to the college land grant, when really charge- 
able, if any have existed, to the unprecedented 



but justifiable issue of military land warrants. 
Under the present amendment, it will be seen 
there can be no possibility of such an evil. 
The general land system of the United States 
is in no manner to be disturbed. ' .' ''■* ' 
The measure as now offered aVoia^ also 
any interference with the homestead 'Mw,'Tt§£^ 
chief benefits of which it may be refrtetlfea 
are not likely hereafter to accrue to ''c7iir riwn 
citizens,) and shuns all danger as to^'alij-^bor-^" 
tion of the lands being bought antr^^-y^ 



large masses by speculators. To 



in. 



therefore, the lands are to be held iii'vcui* 

Si 

a nair million acresvioj; a 
alio 



by the United States until actually polS^* lo' 



the extent of a half million acres ^F( 
national college in each State and TerritoW. 
and when sold the amount, deducting expenses, 
is to be invested in United States five per cent, 
bonds, to be held by the Treasurer of the Uni- 
ted States for the benefit of each of the col- 
leges, and the interest paid thereon semi- 
annually. 

This will not be inconvenient to the Govern- ' 
ment, and will at the same time give the highest 
security to the colleges. Beyond this, the 
United States will obtain and retain a lien upon 
the funds practically enforceable to compel a 
substantial and satisfactory compliance with the 
conditions and limitations of the original land 
grant, as well as of those of the present amend- 
ment. The funds can never be squandered 
nor misapplied. It may be some years — much 
longer than I could wish — before the full 
amount of this grant will be realized, but in 
the end it will give an annual income to each 
institution of not less than $30,000, which, if 
not large, will be enough to place them on a 
solid foundation of assured success, giving to 



^-*;^: 



.hem a prestige of stability and the deeper 
roots of institutions aided by the energy of the 
national Government. 

ADVANTAGES PROMISED. 

•The next consideration is whether the dona- 
tion proposed will be of so much advantage 
to the several States as to be commensurate 
with the cost. The success which has already 
attended even the very limited endowments 
under the original act, to which this is sup- 
plementary, gives a most encouraging answer ; 
not that success has been entirely constant 
and everywhere beyond all cavil ; the outfit 
was too restricted for so much to be expected ; 
but there is abundant proof that success in 
most of the States has been uniform and satis- 
factory, and among nearly thirty institutions 
which have just now got into working order, 
there are at least six or seven which already 
stand forth preeminent in character and use- 
fulness. More will follow when they have the 
means, and some are struggling to get under 
way wi);k^8uch means as they can now com- 
mand. Ib Michigan, Iowa, Kentucky, Illinois, 
Ma^saghy setts, New York, and Connecticut 
tney liaye got under way and are already doing 
educati4)nal work of priceless value. It is 
harfe'.ioa much to say that any one of the 
ii^stitutiaijs established in these States — and 
Syngas and Missouri are not far behind — will 
ultimately be worth singly more to our country 
tlhafi ine._^iBntire cost of the original grant to all 
oTtae States. The seed fell upon good ground 
aVM^has brought forth many fold. Legisla- 
tive liberality and private munificence joined 
hands, and have already given to national 
colleges for the industrial classes the strong- 
est and liveliest hopes of a triumphant career. 
They have started upon a new field of labor, 
where the demand vastly exceeds the supply, 
and have already won public confidence. 

The boys educated here are called upon to 
do duty as men earlier and more rapidly than 
they can be trained and turned out. They do 
not have to seek for places — places seek them. 
As they come forth they do not lean upon 
stinted charity and loath patronage for support 
all the days of early manhood, but they are at 
once summoned to the front and take their 
share of the world's business upon their shoul- 
ders. As men, armed and equipped to promote 
the public welfare, they are wanted everywhere, 
and everywhere command remunerative wages. 
Engineers, chemists, geologists, miners, sur- 
veyors, bridge-builders, draughtsmen, over- 



seers, superintendents, in all of our broad and 
busy country, are greatly needed, and practical 
science — technical education — leads the waj 
and finds cordial appreciation. All branches 
of industry, now so wondrously diversified, 
compete for skilled workmen. As yet evei 
the demand for educators of the stamp anc 
capacity urgently called for cannot be sup 
plied ; and this demand, so extensive now, is 
daily growing larger, especially in the South 
For a long time to come, do all we may, the; 
will be wholly inadequate in numbers anc 
quality, but through the national colleges W( 
may count upon an annual reenforcement, an( 
obtain ere long a regular army of volunteei 
educators. Many of those here trained will b( 
fired by the ambition to make the professioi 
of teaching a life pursuit, as one of the highes 
and most honorable among men.* Thirty 
seven of these institutions will not add toe 
many scientific teachers to those we now have 
for forty million people, and with good anc 
fit teachers the great problem of good schooli 
will be at once more than half solved, ant 
cannot otherwise be solved. 

THE SYSTEM PROPOSED. 

To show there is room for additional, no 
rival, institutions of learning, it seems to b< 
necessary to discuss some of the phases ol 
higher education to some extent, whethei 
mental training should be mainly literary oi 
mainly scientific, and, though my own gives 
me no authority to speak, I offer frankly, but 
with some diffidence, the opinions of one 
among the great mass who has laboriouslj 
experienced the want of more and better Cul- 
ture. I can only plead that I have given the 
subject earnest thought, and that I am thor- 
oughly sincere. Even should my argument 
appear ill-founded, I entreat that it may not 
prejudice a good measure, the measure I am 
trying to support, and those at least who could 
have furnished a better, surely may rest on 
their own. 

It is not proposed to change the system of 
education established by the act of 1862, "to 
promote the liberal and practical education of 
the industrial classes in the several pursuits 
and professions of life;" and in that, while 
other scientific and classical studies were not 
to be excluded, the leading object as set forth 
was, "to teach such branches of learning as 



* One hundred teachers have already gone out 
from the college in Kansas. 



are related to agriculture and the mechanic 
arts." These terms are perhaps broad enough 
to include the curriculum of even a modern 
university, but it was clearly intended that 
these national colleges should place scientific 
or practical studies foremost as the leading 
object, and whatever else might be added, that 
these were in no case to lag in the rear. The 
basis of instruction here indicated has met 
with nearly universal acceptance, and for the 
greater part of mankind it is confidently com- 
mended, notwithstanding many accomplished 
men are unbelievers in the doctrine of edu- 
cational utility, or in any course of discipline 
save the classic. But any other basis than 
that which has been already so cordially greeted 
would have defeated the great purposes of the 
measure, which were and are to benefit the 
largest numbers rather than a select few. The 
design is not to lower even the highest rank of 
scholarship, but to raise up more scholars ; 
not to depress the altitude of mountain peaks, 
but to elevate the great plains. 

NOT TIME ENOUGH FOR OLD CLASSICS AND THE NEW, 

Modern education does not now assume to 
give to any one person all the learning of the 
world. For that life, since its post-diluvian 
reduction to three-score years and ten, is too 
short. What is recorded and what comes 
down by tradition of all the ages past, with 
current original discoveries of human wis- 
dom, covers too much space and consumes 
too much time to be gathered up in the brief 
point of a single human life. Usefulness, 
to say nothing of eminence, can only be se- 
cured by attempting a narrower field, or by 
limiting labor to some special branch of study, 
of science, or of professional knowledge. 
According to the old Latin proverb, "he who 
follows two hares is sure to catch neither." 
It absorbs the labor of a whole life time to 
become an expert in any single pursuit. If 
that labor is diffused over too wide an extent, 
or clambers around too many objects, it van- 
ishes before the blaze of day like morning 
mist which faintly hugs the hill-tops, but rises 
only to disappear. Not that a man may not 
love art and politics, literature and science, 
and diverse human interests, often with profit, 
but that the highest individual perfection and 
supremacy is rarely reached save when the 
main effort is made in one direction. 

" One science only will one genius fit, 
So vast is art, so narrow human wit." 

To accomplish anything noteworthy the 



scholar and the man must dig in one place, 
dig so deep that from his stand-point the stars 
shall remain forever visible, or until some 
spring shall burst forth and mount high above 
the surface level. 

Knowledge not for use may do for useless 
philosophers, of whom the United States has, 
perhaps, too little appreciation, and postpones 
to a more convenient season. But here edu- 
cation, embracing the largest numbei's, must 
have such scope as to practically fit the owner 
for his destined vocation. Its backbone must 
be made up with what will be most needed. 
A practical education is more than ever 
required for all classes — one almost as much 
as another — and certainly required for the 
industrial classes of the American people, in 
order to give them the sovereignty of their 
natural faculties, to make them happy and 
independent personally, to bring out their 
highest moral and productive value to the 
country, to rescue them from littleness in their 
intercourse with the present world, and to make 
even immortality more desirable in the world 
to come. Their rare energy, inventiveness, 
and progressive aptitudes merit special and 
the highest and most effective training. The 
processes of development should be equal to 
the excellence of the raw materials. 

We seek to have among us not only some 
of those who comprehend all that was known 
among the ancients, but more who are able to 
surpass them. The Romans lost very little 
time in studying any language but their own — 
the Greeks lost none at all — and we do not 
seek to have all of our people exhaust their 
youth in the vain attempt to rival defunct 
nationalities in their obsolete tongues, but to 
have them achieve something in our own 
mother tongue — in our own language — a lan- 
guage now spoken by more than one hundred 
million people in the highest rank of civiliza- 
tion, though the latest born among modern lan- 
guages, or hardly known four or five hundred 
years ago, and not yet mastered when written 
or spoken by even all collegians, nor by all 
members of Congress, such as myself. Only 
since Henry VII (A. D. 1489) have the 
statutes of England been printed in the Eng- 
lish tongue, and were the woi'ks of Shaks- 
peare now printed as originally written they 
would not be read with any patience nor fully 
understood. 

The education of our British ancestors 
started slowly, and at the start was necessarily 



of a limited and clumsy sort, and the best at 
that time anywhere to be found was only such 
as was prescribed by priests. Geography was 
not mugMirexplored beyond the Pillars of Her- 
cules, and astronomy, it has been said, was 
conten»with a calculation of Easter and with 
multiplying by two a guess at half the distance 
of the sun from the earth. Water rose in 
pumps only, as philosophers declared, because 
Nature abhorred a vacuum. Books on geom- 
etry were destroyed, as infected with magic. 
Geology was censured by the Sorbonne, and 
chemistry was still striving to transmute metals 
into gold, and to find the universal solvent. 
Music was mainly confined to the dull monot- 
ony of chanting; sweet sounds were onlyborQ 
after the Reformation, and then music was 
more indebted to the Catholics and Metho- 
dists than to the Puritans, who plugged their 
>;' irs against even the sound of a pitch-pipe. 
Many of the peers of "Merry England" were 
unable to read and write. Bacon and Newton, 
as well as La Place, had HOt yet appeared. 
Schools were chiefly confined to cathedrals 
and monasteries, and of course the laity could 
have little hope and no opportunity. Some 
modern nations were ashamed of their uncouth 
dialects and borrowed the Latin. The Eng- 
lish borrowed both Latin and French. The 
universities of England were the outgrowth of 
such an age. Yet a coarse of studies* emerg- 
ing from some of these earlier days — though 
we turn away our noses from the morality 
then in vogue — was long held as too hoary- 
headed and sacred for reform at Oxford ; and 
American colleges, humbly venerating their 
English models, until recently offered years of 
nearly similar culture to all alike, regardless 
of differences of age, means, aptitudes, or 
intended pursuits. 

The old English system did not look beyond 
the luminaries of Church and State, and for 
them looked most earnestly after gentlemanly 
deportment and scientific profundity in cricket ; 
but will such a system do for the bulk of the 
young men of America? For two centuries 
almost we have imitated our English grand- 
mother, and that is quite long enough. 

It is true that within a few years some of our 
most richly endowed institutions have pre- 
sented a less stinted bill of fare and a wider 



* It is remarkable that Oxford, now the sturdiest 
upholder of Greek literature, resisted at first the 
establishment of a Greek professorship as an un- 
warranted innovation. 



range of elective studies, but many are still 
unable to enlarge their staff of professors and 
are forced to continue steadfastly in their 
ancient ways, to the neglect of modern lan- 
guages, modern sciences, and modern thought. 
For those seeking a purely professional educa- 
tion, where the old Greek philosophy, poetry, 
and eloquence may become more appropriate 
discipline, this old routine is open to less criti- 
cism, or may be less likely to be rudely jostled 
by actual contact with the world, and subse- 
quent special training may supply deficiencies ; 
but there is a much larger number now who 
need and seek culture and training of a more 
liberal and progressive character. A knowl- 
edge of the dead languages, unused, soon 
dwindles to a smattering, then to more slender 
reminiscences, and is never an equivalent for 
the mastery of some of the living, always in use. 
Greek sophisms are doubtless very fine, but a 
western Yankee might prize more highly Mc- 
Cormack reapers. Intellectual gymnastics are 
splendid , but an engineer would rather solve the 
mysteries of the steam-engine. Things, and not 
words, are appreciated by the multitude, and the 
multitude must be fed, but not on husks. Sub- 
stance and utility are demanded. Rare reams 
of learning kept for show are no longer " legal 
tenders," and are to be brushed aside for 
actual ''clinkers" in the pocket ready for 
use . There is certainly a beauty in learning, 
lovable for its own sake, regardless of the uses 
to which it may be turned : but the majority of 
mankind need learning, as they do clothing 
and tools of trade, for daily use and profit, 
rather than as an object of sentimental value 
and esthetic rarity. The judgment of jEsop's 
cock, which preferred the barleycorn to the 
gem, is irreversible. 

There is no more dignity in ancient lan- 
guages than in modern ; ancient history is not 
a whit superior to that of later times, or to 
that which we ourselves have made ; nor can 
heathen mythology outrank Christianity. 
Greek and Roman literature, it is true, was 
once all the world had, and it is still of great 
and wonderful value, as those of us who read 
only in translations freely concede, but I hope 
to be pardoned by my more classical friends 
for saying that its relative value no longer 
entitles it to a place actually in front. To 
keep it there only dwarfs the present age and 
prevents a home growth. Its greatest bulk, 
it must be allowed, is made up of the graces 
of oratory and works of imagination — unfading 



o 



flowers, indeed, of language and sentiment — 
but which oflfer little aid to a matter-of-fact 
age that rides upon locomotives and sends 
messages by the electric telegaph. Old ideas 
in sonorous periods or glittering sentences 
are not so much wanted as something new 
and of our own invention. 

It might not be creditable to a lawyer or a 
physician to be ignorant of Latin, and cer- 
tainly it would be a greater discredit to a 
clergyman to be wholly ignorant of the lan- 
guage in which Paul addressed Athenians; but 
to exhaust eight of the ten years of student 
life in order to excel in Latin or Greek prize 
verses, to an average American, about to em. 
bark in the activities of American life, is only 
an elegant frivolity which he can easily be 
persuaded to swap for something more solid 
and masculine, or at least for something with 
greater promises of being useful. As well 
might we exchange the major mode of music, 
or the oratorios of Handel for the sing-song 
minor of the Greeks and Romans, as to exalt 
their literature above that of all later ages. 
Ancient literature, with all of its enticing fas- 
cinations and fabulous processions of lecher- 
ous deities, had its origin among those who 
were not only neglectful of trade and com- 
merce, but who were wholly ignorant of all 
the great inventions of mankind, with the 
single exception of letters ; and these inven- 
tions, and the discoveries in physical and 
natural sciences, within the last one hundred 
and, fifty years, have certainly greatly increased 
the knowledge and power of the race. They 
have made even miracles possible. Divine 
honors would anciently have been paid to their 
authors. Can it be that modern literature is 
to remain forever in a secondary position, the 
slave of the past, and derive no impulse from 
the amplitude of the new forces now every- 
where so ready to lend the vigor and splendor 
of their assistance? Are we never to create 
anything, and so remain forever hopelessly in 
debt to ancient ages? 

PHYSICAL SYSTEM ALSO INADEQUATE. 

(^ An exclusively classic discipline is, however, 
no more inappropriate than an exclusively 
physical discipline. If one is too fine, the other 
is too coarse. Alone or together they are in 
the rear of modern civilization. Some of the 
so-called "great" among our English ances- 
tors would be dwindles if measured by modern 
standards. Many of them were dazzling enough 
in tournaments, but, when they could read, 



often made dull work at writing. The world 
was slow in parting with the chivalric idea that 
arms was the noblest occupation of mankind, 
and the patrons of solid learning ^^^ fev;. 
Even the court of Henry VIII^^^^ its 
highest luster upon athletic sports. J^^png 
exercised himself daily in wrestling, sh^Kng, 
dancing, leaping moats with a pole, and cast- 
ing the iron bar. Such was his pride in these 
Olympian contests, historians declare, that on 
the Field of Cloth of Gold he publicly seized 
Francis I in his arms to throw him, ''as a 
sailor or bricklayer would try a new comrade." 
Where such brawny victories bore off all the 
honors mental training could hardly be ex- 
pected to flourish. 

Elizabeth, who I suppose may be called, in 
spite of her daily treachery, daily piety, and 
daily profanity, England's proudest and most 
profitable monarch, cared more for questionable 
personal charms, and for hoarding the three 
thousand dresses she had at her decease, than 
for her scholarship in Latin and Greek, what- 
ever that might be. Able, undoubtedly, to swear 
in very good Latin, she could also beat her maids 
of honor, spit upon the coat of a knight, box 
the ears of Essex, coquette with kings-, princes, 
dukes, and earls ; though vexed when her 
suitors married, and resolved to die, if not to 
live, a maiden queen. 

But in the days of Queen Bess and her 
father, as in those long after of Cromwell, an 
English education had more to do with the 
power of muscle than with brain power, or the 
humanities, and, by the prize-ring, fox-hant- 
ing, and horse-racing, supplemented by punch 
and gin, it was forced in that direction which 
would best enable each person physically to 
support and defend himself and his sovereign. 
The Government legislated to that end, and 
remorselessly against idleness, or so as to give 
work to all and secure the best work — not by 
schools — but by guilds, by long apprenticeships, 
and by making all the coarser arts hereditary, 
or by making every son the journeyman of his 
father: "once a cobbler always a cobbler. " 
But this athletic system of merely physical 
training, pushed as the national glory, and 
applied to the masses — teaching the hand but 
not the head — has sadly failed, and produced 
in England, at length, some athletes of the 
prize-ring, indeed, but also a most unexampled 
crop of pauperism, ignorance, and discontent. 
Health and beauty of body, if thus obtained, 
though greatly to be desired, cannot alone be 



6 




«>» 



relied upon to keep at bay the dangers of un- 
satisfied human aspirations, and the highest 
of the human form is barren even 
inless animated by intellect. Labor- 
^there now seek relief and find none 
?s, find none in chartism or commun- 
they cannot be hoaxed or coaxed to 
enTTst among British volunteers even to repel 
invaders at any probable or improbable " Bat- 
tle of Dorking." John Bulls no longer, they 
emigrate. 

HIGHER GENEKAL EDUCATION A NECESSITY. 

A great change has taken place, certainly 
in America, in the absolute emancipation of 
^bor from all legal restraints — all save the 
Holeful eight-hour strait-jacket ; and there 
Ire mSTre freedom in the choice of those studies 
■jmich master and control the highways of life. 
inSiead of being the distinction of a few, edu- 
cation is becoming the right of all, and the dis- 
tinction of the many. We live not only in a 
new world, but in a new era. Learning 
steadily advances, and old errors are tram- 
pled under foot without a murmur and with- 
out fear of a papal bull. The State, as well 
as the individual, has its ambition, and takes 
an interest in multiplying and holding edu- 
cated men. They are its excutive, legislative, 
and judicial supports. They figure in the lofti- 
est pages of history. They turn to use and 
enjoyment every idle and leisure scrap of time. 
They adorn the press, the bar, and the pulpit. 
They settle national differences by other 
modes than war ; on, if war they must, the 
power of an army of educated men, guided by 
educated men, is sure to transcend by far that 
of any equal number of uneducated. 
» The education of the plodding, stout-willed 
German people has been compulsory, while 
that of the nimble, light-hearted French nation 
has been neglected, and their recent bloody 
and decisive conflict shows that victory would 
not be wooed nor won by illiterate soldiers. 
Wherever pitted in the combat, the schooled 
men conquered. The treachery to be lamented 
by Frenchmen was not so much that of the 
Empire at Sedan as that of the empire of 
ignorance among the people. 

In our own country unquestionably the 
northern common-school was an uncomputed 
force in the late war which the South could 
not equally match. Equal in courage, there 
was an evident disparity as to the recuperative 
power of the personal resources in reserve. In 
one army there were only soldiers ; in the other. 



soldiers and always something more. The 
former were only strong while they won ; the 
latter strongest when they lost and had refitted. 
Though led with skill, the rebel armies did not 
stop to think, while the bayonets they met 
were the representatives of the deepest thought 
and the utmost force of universal education, 
and always of a book in the knapsack. Peace 
has returned to the nation, and now that edu- 
cation will leaven the whole liimp. The best 
husbandry goes North for its seed corn, and 
the South, alive with good planters, will plant 
the seed most likely to promote its greatest 
prosperity and happiness. Schools must and 
will ere long have place and equal fame in all 
parts of a common country. 

The domination of the aristocracies of Europe 
for so long a period in Feudal Ages may be 
ascribed to their martial and physical training, 
and in later times, the domination of legisla- 
tive bodies representing no constituents may 
be ascribed to the exceptional and superior 
educational advantages of the governing class, 
not less than to the dense ignorance of the 
masses governed. The ascendancy of the 
statesmen of Virginia — " the mother of States 
and of Presidents" — for so many years in our 
own land may in some degree be honorably 
credited to the love of learning of their leading 
men, and to the spirit which founded the Uni- 
versity of Virginia, of which Jefferson was so 
proud to be known as the father. Though 
Washington and Monroe could hardly be 
classed as eminent scholars, our first genera- 
tion of leading statesmen were undeniably 
largely composed of men of liberal culture, as 
well as of liberal principles. Of these Prince- 
ton furnished a brilliant host,* though they 
were not all sons of New Jersey. The place 
of Massachusetts in American history might 
have been less conspicuous but for the early 
prominence of Harvard College. 

Even the civil service, with all of our soli- 
citude, can only be permanently elevated by 
universal and thorough education — as univer- 
sal as eligibility to office and as thorough as 
the seeking after it. Men so educated are 
too well trained to be awkward with afi'airs ; 
they have too much pride to sacrifice honor to 
interest, and respect Christianity too sincerely 
to seek reputation on any other basis than doing 
right. Learned judges are incorruptible, or, if 

* Such as Philip Freneau, Aaron Burr, Joseph 
Reed, Riehard Rusb, Richard Stockton, Oliver 
Ellsworth. Luther Martin, and Edward Livingston. 



Bacon be cited as an exception, it must be noted 
that no judicial decision of that distinguished 
man has ever been reversed, notwithstanding 
Pope's terrible epigram which immortalizes 
"the wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind." 
Education guides men by principle, by justice, 
by facts and logic, not by solemn cant, jolly 
fictions, and baseless prejudices. It has no 
fellowship with trickery or fraud, and never 
resorts to " breech-loading ballot-boxes," nor 
to brutish violence. It is only a truism to 
assert that education is essential to our form 
of government. The best government must 
have the best men as citizens. A republic 
could not stand a cycle of the moon among 
Hottentots, and often reels, totters, and falls 
even among races claiming to be enlightened. 
Democracy must fail when only upheld by 
ignorance and vice, and can only succeed by a 
general diffusion of both knowledge and virtue. 
' In other lands and under other forms of gov- 
ernment education maybe optional ; with us it 
is indispensable. Untaught and unprincipled 
men may be governed, but they cannot govern; 
they cannot be trusted. The intellectual and 
moral progress of man is the great force which 
cripples and binds absolute and illegitimate 
power. This force is needed as a check in 
popular governments quite as much as in those 
more arbitrary. Here majorities rule, and 
majorities have a fixed standard of intelligence 
and integrity, which may be on the high plane 
of a Washington, or low down on that of a 
Boss Tweed. There is a possibility for us to 
be better than the average of mankind, but 
there is also plenty of freedom to be worse. 

A DENSE POPULATION TO BE PROVIDED FOR. 

The United States is destined to become 
one of the most populous nations of the world. 
One hundred million people are expected 
to be represented in the national capital in 
less than thirty years, and a hundred and fifty 
million in less than fifty years. A dense 
population is, however, almost inseparable 
from some debasement. Scarcely can we 
hope to increase in virtues as we increase in 
numbers. Therefore we should take wise 
precautions, a bond of fate, for the future con- 
duct of our posterity. They are to be taught 
a double duty ; first in their character as men, 
and, second, their responsibility as citizens of 
the great Republic. As we make the mold 
so will be the shape of our destiny. 

At present the habits of our rural popula- 



tion are pure and simple. A dense population 
increasing wealth, voluptuous living, and a 
materialistic philosophy, toward which the 
world is said to be tending, may change all 
this. Let the American Congress, then, not 
hold back any measure that tends to relieve 
future peril, or that will lift up the intellectual 
and moral standard of the young and indus- 
trial classes of our country, and these em- 
brace the most part of that unknown throng 
which only awaits our exit to crowd forward 
on to the stage where they are to be the pilots 
of State and wield the political and civil, as 
well as the moral and religious forces of the 
New World. 

■//Our popular form of government, however \ 
peacefully disposed, does not challenge the 
hearty sympathy of other less popular Govern- 
ments. Peace may not forever be possible; 
and we must remember that in war victory 
follows neither the greatest nor the most guns, 
but follows the party which can make and 
knows how to use the best — does not follow 
absolutely the largest army, but the best 
handled and the most sagacious. 

All of these national colleges are to give 
some military instruction, and this, so widely 
difi'used and multiplied, in any great future war, 
will be of vastly more service than even our 
present Naval and Military Academies, how- 
ever admirably they may be conducted. In 
time of peace, and without annual appropria- 
tions, we shall have made our best prepara- 
tion for war. 

A EEOADEE STSTEM REQUIRED. 

But we want a system of broader education 
for the American people in the arts of peace. 
It is perhaps unnecessary at present to multi- 
ply institutions for the training of professional 
men, as those we have are equal to the task 
of furnishing all that are needed, and some 
"professional supernumeraries" not so much 
needed. The great want is a system by which 
each one among the masse* may become more 
valuable to himself and to society, and more 
honored and esteemed. Agriculture and the 
mechanic arts always lack recruits, and most 
lack recruits that have been drilled. Willing 
hands can here always find room for boundless 
enterprise. Our own artisans, however, like 
too many other Americans, most esteem the 
dignity of pecuniary profits and are generally 
supposed to be more proud of swift work than 
of the skillful and dexterous. They ,wear out 
and leave too few honored names to gild their 



8 



memories and stamp their workmanship. Let 
them be taught better. Agriculture also should 
have such a base of scientific instruction as 
will enable every farmer to obtain more valu- 
able crops without an annual and permanent 
depletion of the soil. In Great Britain they 
have certainly studied agricultural economy 
by scientific methods longer and more pro- 
foundly than we have ever been prompted to 
do in America, and yet they had in 1871 four 
million fewer sheep than in 1868, and in 1871 
ihe number of cattle was fewer by seventy thou- 
sand than in 1870. In 1872 the general out- 
cry there as to the increased cost of butcher's 
meat has been fearful. Our condition as to 
sheep and cattle is not wholly dissimilar, 
and was temporarily rather worse, when the 
slaughter-pens of the recent war made such 
notable havoc of American stock, and from 
which we are but slowly recovering.* 

A diminishing stock, from which must be 
fed an increasing population, is a calamity to 
be avoided by any nation, for the shrinkage in 
stock will be followed by an equal shrinkage 
of crops. This is a point that should be 
looked after, and before we have squandered 
all the natural fertility of our soil. 

Architecture, sculpture, and painting reached 
a position in or before the fifteenth and six- 
teenth century beyond which they have not 
since advanced, although science, philosophy, 
and literature have been making some of their 
grandest strides. (The world is again giving 
more attention to tVe fine arts, and, more com- 
mendable still, it is endeavoring, by more highly 
trained labor, to educate and elevate the whole 
race of man. Among the evidences of this is 
the opportunity which is being offered to arti- 
sans and to all ambitious young men for special 
education. No doubt some of this is of a 
cheap sort, hut it is a move in the right direc- 
tion. Decide what you are fit for and go 
about it, appears to be the order of the day. 

OTHEE NATIONS MOVING. 

Italy within ten years past has established 
eighty-nine civil and military institutions for 
technical instruction. Of these, eleven are 
intended exclusively for officers and non- com- 
missioned officers of the army and navy, and 
the whole number are rapidly rising into 



* The number of our cattle in 1860 was 28,967,028, 
and fell off in 1870 to 28,07-4,582, or, while our popula- 
tion increased twenty-two and a half per cent., our 
cattle decreased about three and a halt'^)er cent. 



importance. The number of teachers to each 
averages above eleven. 

Even Great Britain is moving in this direc- 
tion, and moreover has been driven step by 
step, as limitations on suffrage have been 
removed, to pay some regard to universal edu- 
cation, as the grant for educational. purposes, 
which was only £30,000 (or $150,000) in 1840, 
and raised to £1,196,251 (or- $5,981,255) in 
1871, sufficiently shows. 

From the diplomatic report, made to the 
British Parliament in 1871, we find that the 
republic of Switzerland devotes thirteen and 
one fourth per cent, of its total revenue from 
all sources to education. The Federal Gov- 
ernment there takes the initiative, but the task 
of putting measures into practice devolves 
chiefly on the communes. This report cor 
tains the following pregnant words : 

" With that practical genius of which such striki ■ g 
illustrations are given by the Swiss people in the 
management both of their private and public affairs, 
they have long since arrived at the conviction that 
the education of the masses is the only sound basis 
of a State with free institutions, and the most effect- 
ive lever to raise the moral as well as the material 
condition of a nation." 

Even in Greece they are at last awaking to 
the necessity of a more earnest and practical 
education. A literary university, though at- 
tended by twelve hundred and forty-four stu- 
dents — one half of whom being law students, 
or not a disproportionate number for a country 
ten times larger — brings forth neither a Per- 
icles nor a Phidias. They have, however, 
some vanity touching " the vision and faculty 
divine " of their ancestors, and have recently 
established at Athens a polytechnic school, 
but thus far it has only offered instruction in 
painting, sculpture, wood- engraving, casting 
in plaster, and architectural and mechanical 
arts. With this rather meager modern ex- 
hibit of classic Greece, the proud " mother of 
arts and eloquence," we may pardon the im- 
patience of their minister of public instruc 
tion when he says : 

" Better that the university itself should becomi 
an agency to impart intelligence to agricultural an( 
manufacturing industry, than to add to the existinj 
number of professional idlers." 

It may be remembered that Cowper ha 
said: 

"An idler is a watch that wants both hands, 
As useless if it goes as when it stands." 

Since 1847 they have instituted .in Belgiui 
"workmen's decorations," or gold or silv( 
badges of distinction, worn externally, like 
star of an order of knighthoodj as a specis 



9 



mode of rewarding skillful and meritorious 
artisans " of recognized ability and irreproach- 
able conduct." These are limited in number, 
and those who obtain the distinction are enti- 
tled to wear the decoration, attached by a 
ribbon, on the left breast. It is accompanied 
by a diploma, artistically engraved, setting 
forth the name and qualifications of the recip- 
ient, which is usually framed and hung in a 
conspicuous place in the artisan's dwelling. 
This is an order of merit fit to be recognized 
by agricultural and mechanical societies under 
a republican form of government. 

European nations have long struggled, and 
at immense cost, to maintain a balance of mil- 
itary power, and even now an increase of the 
army and navy by one Government pushes on 
an equal increase among others as a matter of 
self-protection. How much greater the neces- 
sity for our protection is it that we should main- 
tain a balance of educational forces and keep 
pace with the progress of intellectual develop- 
ment which is visibly and daily so surely add- 
ing largely to the power and vitality of nations ! 
This is a kind of rivalry to be welcomed, and 
such as drives no nation to bankruptcy. 

WK ARE NOT WHOLLY IDLE. 



But we are doing something. The 
chusetts Institute of Technology (in addition 
to an agricultural college that has come to be 
regarded as a model) was to some extent a 
recipient of the fund derived from the land 
grant, and, though not bearing the name of a 
college, there are few institutions doing more 
useful and thorough work for the instruction 
of the industrial classes ; and here, also, they 
work, as may be seen by their catalogue, not 
only for the State of Massachusetts, but for 
not less than thirteen other States which are 
represented among their students. Like the 
scientific department so cordially attached to 
Yale College, it is already national in its char- 
acter and in its efi'ects. It has "provoked 
good works" elsewhere. The national power, 
however, here, as ia other States, only tenders 
initial and directing aid, while the State has 
the sole charge and consummation of the 
work to be done. 

The president of the Wisconsin University 
writes that, " but for the stimulus of the land 
grant the institution would hardly be in exist- 
ence ; that the agricultural and military de- 
partments are thoroughly organized, the fund 
safe, and that the prospects are good, but that 
they reed a million." 



From Delaware we are told that the funda- 
mental expenses in a small Statt are as much 
as in a large State, and to succeed they must 
have more aid. 

The president of Dartmouth Agricultural 
College states that "the students are gen- 
erally young men of limited means ; that the 
land grant has induced private liberality to 
establish a large number of scholarships, 
was the chief means of establishing a board 
of agriculture in the State, and has done 
much in calling attention especially to the 
importance of more science among farmers." 

In Tennessee the president writes from 
Knoxville that "a good college education 
within reach, at the small annual expense of 
$125, including board, lodging, fuel, &c., can- 
not be otherwise than extensive and import- 
ant" in its results. 

In Kentucky three hundred students selected 
by the State are admitted free, while the tuition 
and room-fee for others is only twenty- five 
dollars, and board about $1 60 per week. 

I have given these mutilated extracts merely 
as specimens of the tenor of letters received 
from these institutions. They are all brimful 
of faith, hope, and courage. 

But, while there is much of encouragement, 
there is much more required. For instance, 
Philadelphia, with six hundred thousand in- 
habitants, and more largely engaged in indus- 
trial employments than any other city on the 
continent, has no system of technical, indus- 
trial, or art education which reaches more 
than forty pupils. Many States, as well as 
cities, are no better cared for. 

The grave importance of the subject must be 
my apology for using so much of my time in 
the discussion of educational systems, and of 
the general educational requirements of our 
people as a nation. The remaining points to 
which I shall ask attention will be touched 
with more commendable brevity. 

EQUALITY OF ENDOWMENTS. 

The former act of Congress made a distri- 
bution of lands on the basis of the number of 
presidential electors for each State, or the 
number of Representatives and Senators of 
each State. This was an approximation to the 
ratio of population, made at the earliest time 
possible after the taking of the census, but still 
only an approximation, and destitute of abso* 
lute accuracy. 

The present bill proposes an equal State dis» 



10 



tribution, or to complete the endowment of 
one college in each State. If Senators, at the 
first glance, should question the propriety of 
such a basisof distribution, I ask their respect- 
ful attention to some of the reasons which may 
be offered in its suppert. In the first place 
this course is necessary in order to escape the 
extremes of either giving too much to seme 
States or too little to others. Any rule accord- 
ing to population within the boundary lines of 
States would plant colleges in more than half 
of the States of such puny strength and with 
such inferior equipments that they could never 
take root, and a general failure would be inev- 
itable. The smaller States have smaller wealth, 
and but few men of large fortunes upon whom 
to rely for auxilliary aid. In the larger States 
not only legislators, but many individuals with 
ample resources, are found ready and eager to 
make munificent contributions to the support 
of such institutions, in some instances even in 
excess of the national bounty, as in the case 
of the Cornell University in New York, where 
the large-hearted and large-handed Mr. Cornell 
has given of his own private fortune $1,342,000, 
and which with the 990,000 acres of land 
received is still insufificient, according to Mr. 
Cornell, to fully develop and support the insti- 
tution even in its opening career of usefulness. 
Kindred liberality, public and private, in Mas- 
sachusetts and Connecticut has also been pro- 
ductive of noble results. Substantial addi- 
tional appropriations to the national fund — in 
Illinois of $265,000, in California $245,000 in 
coin, and in Nebraska of $150,000 — evince the 
pride and interest taken by the people in all 
parts of the country in these institutions. In 
States less fortunate than those named the 
great drawback is a lamentable want of means. 
There are too many vacant professorships ; 
and laboratories, cabinets, museums, libraries, 
and philosophical instruments, are seen only 
afar off. These facts are made only too con- 
spicuous by our recent experience, and the 
nation alone is able to furnish adequate relief. 
If population were fixed upon as the basis 
of any aid to be given, even that is subject to 
constant fluctuations, and though it might be 
mathematically correct at the time of the pas- 
sage of the act, it would never be even mathe- 
matically correct afterward. Contemplating 
the future growth of the country, it is not im- 
possible that geographical extent would prove 
as equitable a basis upon which to found dis- 
crimination as would population, if discrim- 



ination were to be tolerated. In that case 
Texas should receive five times as much as 
Pennsylvania, and Maine three fourths as 
much as New York. {But these institutions 
will be as much for the protection of the nation 
as are any of our military fortifications J and 
what would be thought of a refusal to build 
anything but a small fort, for instance, on the 
Delaware because the salient point happened 
to be in a small State? Ample protection 
should be given to all alike — not most to the 
oldest and richest, nor least to the youngest 
and weakest of the sisterhood. /"Thermopylse 
was lost, not through the millions of foes in 
front, but through the unguarded pass of the 
mountains. Our remotest mountain passes 
must all be efiBciently guarded. \ 

There is no jealousy in the Republic of Let- 
ters which can be aroused among the friendg 
of purely literary or classical colleges. They 
know that to make a sound education of any 
kind available to larger numbers, they must at 
once enlarge their own field of operations and 
lift their own standard higher. The greater 
the number educated, the greater will be the 
education required. 

The beneficiaries under the original grant, 
also, all recognize and cordially indorse the 
propriety of the present bill, framed as it is, 
to found a college in each State on the basis 
of entire State equality. Those colleges which 
heretofore started with most feel the absolute 
necessity for more, and better appreciate the 
greater necessities of those which started with 
least. Wherever located, it is certain that they 
are all at work for the common good, with one 
common interest. What matters it to New 
York that the light-house at Sandy Hook is on 
the soil of New Jersey? It speeds on its way 
the commerce of New York and the world no 
less. The agricultural convention which met 
here last winter, from all parts of the Union, 
gave this measure their undivided support, 
and to them should be credited the idea of an 
equal donation to all the States regardless of 
the amount of population. They fully under- 
stood that knowledge cannot be hemmed in by 
State lines, and that wherever accumulated, i 
will ultimately all be distributed and, like sum- 
mer rain, refresh the world. Agriculture has 
generous instincts and seeks no exclusive ben- 
efits. It builds up itself on the prosperity of 
others. 

It is apparent that as large a fund is re- 
quired to properly "equip and man" a col- 



11 



lege in one State as in another. In small 
States this fund cannot be raised, neither by 
taxation nor through gifts. This fact must 
be recognized. And yet such States cannot 
forego equal advantages for their people, and 
they may have incomparable sites — places for 
educational forts — which for health, economy, 
and other obvious reasons, are often to be pre- 
ferred to, or at least may be entitled to, equal 
consideration with those of larger States. An 
abundance of air may be preferred to an abun- 
dance of population, and certainly a town in a 
college should be preferred to a college in a 
town. 
t The paramount object is to place higher and 
more appropriate education within reach of 
all, the poor as well as the rich, without regard 
to ancestry or race, and of that sort which will 
engender a perpetual appetite for more. For 
this purpose, if we rely only upon the few col- 
leges, ever so well established as private cor- 
porations, they will be too much crowded, or 
fail to excite general sympathy, or be ham- 
pered by an antiquated course of studies, or 
designed solely for professional advancement, 
and the cost will be made to many an unbear- 
able burden ; but let them be well founded 
in every State by national aid, and then local 
pride will be aroused to nurse and guard their 
prosperity, and the expense of a liberal edu- 
cation will be made so moderate that no one 
will be excluded who has strength of natural 
parts, and sufficient ambition to go and knock 
at the doors. \ 

COLLEGE STUDENTS OBLITERATE STATE LINKS. 

An examination of the catalogues of all well 
established institutions of learning will show 
their cosmopolitan character, and justify the 
argument for equal favor in behalf of the 
national colleges. At Harvard University the 
number of undergraduates in 1871-72 was 619, 
and 211 of these hail from twenty-three other 
I States. More than halfof the 134 law students, 
or 71, came from twenty-two other States. In 
the Kentucky University, nearly half, or 266 out 
of 579 students came from twenty-four States 
and two Territories. At Yale College, in 
1871-72, the catalogue shows that out of 527 
academical students, 371 came from twenty- four 
other States, or over 70 per cent., including 9 
from beyond the sea — leaving only 147 with 
their homes at present in Connecticut. Of 69 
theological students, only 17 are from Con- 
necticut, while 52 are accounted for elsewhere. , 



At Dartmouth, in 1870-71, there were 437 
students, and only 165 of these came from 
New Hampshire, and all the rest were from 
nineteen other States and foreign countries. 

The tuition at these institutions generally is 
comparatively high, yet it is much less than 
one fourth of the first cost, if the interest upon 
their endowments were to be computed and 
charged ; board bills and other expenses are 
also so large that none but really wealthy men 
can afford to send their sons there ; but the 
advantages from a numerous staff of distin- 
guished professors and of large libraries is 
widely known and appreciated ; and a change 
of climate, of society, and of text-books exerts 
a potential influence all over the country in 
the choice of colleges for the education of 
young men. All of our foremost colleges, 
like those of Michigan, Virginia, New Jersey, 
and many others, are almost as national in 
practical usefulness as in reputation. Those 
to be aided by the present bill will tend more 
strongly in the same direction of national 
usefulness. They will be cemented together 
by the common bond of one parentage with 
many kindred features of relationship, all 
emulous of distinction, and the excellencies 
of one will be known and soon copied by all. 

The facts already given show that American 
colleges obliterate State lines. Students flock 
to favorite seats of learning from all quarters 
of the country, and, after four years of study 
and discipline, they go out to be more widely 
distributed than ever. They have the world 
before them where to choose, and as soon as 
the last notes of their parting hymn have been 
heard they fold their tents and are away to all 
and the remotest parts of a common country, 
never, perhaps, to revisit their ^ZmaTlfaier until 
after a score or two of years they return bear- 
ing names known and honored in distant 
States. It is the highest function of States to 
raise and educate young men and young 
women, and the noble lot of some is to do 
this, not wholly for themselves, but for other 
States. 

COLLEGE BENEFITS NEVER CONFINED TO ONE STATE, 

Our whole people are adventurous and 
migratory. Almost nomadic in character, each 
one is at least a hardy pioneer for himself. 
There is no legal impediment to the transfer 
of estates. Nothing is owned which refuses 
at any price a change of ownership. A house, 
made even with rarest art, is often held as 



12 



ready for sale as to live in. The accident of 
birthplace does not fix Americans to the soil 
of their fathers. If there is a better soil they 
believe the Lord intended it for them, and they 
forthwith mean to have it. They spread out. 
Nothing less than the whole country is their 
home. Citizens of one State to-day may be 
citizens of another to-morrow; and, never 
drones, they are entitled to be welcomed and 
treated with hospitality wherever they choose 
to fix their abiding places. They drink to the 
words of Goethe: 

"To give space for wandering is it 
That the world was made so wide." 

The last census report shows these facts in 
a striking manner. Sedentary life is anti- 
American. At my request the late v?orthy 



Superintendent of the Census (General Walker) 
has furnished me with a table (A) showing 
how many persons born in any State now 
remain there, how many have gone to other 
States, and how many in the State were born 
in other States. From this it will be seen that 
the State of Vermont, with a population of 
330,551, has sent out 177,164 to other States, 
or more than half as many as are now living 
in the State, and has received from other 
States only 34,582 of its inhabitants. New 
York has a population of 4,382,754 persons, 
but of these only 2,487,776 were born in New 
York, while 1,073,542 persona born in New 
York now reside in other States. Of those 
born in Pennsylvania, 674,544 live in other 
States. Kentucky, with a population of 



TABLE A. 



States and Territories. 



Alabama 

Arizona 

Arkansas 

California 

Colorado 

Connecticut 

Dakota 

Delaware 

District of Columbia., 

Florida 

Georgia 

Idaho 

Illinois 

Indiana..... 

Iowa 

Kansas 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maine 

Maryland 

Massachusetts 

Michigan 

Minnesota. 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

Montana , 

Nebraska 

Nevada 

New Hampshire 

New Jersey 

New Mexico 

New York 

North Carolina 

Ohio 

Oregon 

Pennsylvania 

Rhode Island 

South Carolina 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Utah 

Vermont 

Virginia 

"West Virginia 

Washington 

Wisconsin 

Wyoming 



Aggregate 
population. 



Born ia the 

State, now 

lining in 

the United 

States. 



996,992 


973,700 


9,658 


1,640 


484.471 


287,832 


560,247 


181.835 


39,864 


7,579 


537,454 


487,128 


14,181 


2,458 


125,015 


133,419 


131,700 


67,547 


187,748 


124,148 


1,184,109 


1.208,104 


14,999 


1,499 


2,539,891 


1.479,410 


1,680,637 


1.369,411 


1,194,020 


517,831 


364,399 


74,090 


1,321,011 


1,484,207 


726,915 


564,997 


626.915 


699,834 


780,894 


805,548 


1,457,351 


1,147,177 


1,184,059 


572.988 


439,706 


139,031 


827,922 


702,684 


1.721,295 


1,045,268 


20,595 


2,197 


122,993 


23,234 


42,491 


4,888 


318,300 


367.346 


906,096 


724,075 


91,874 


92,^6 


4,382,759 


4,061,348 


1,071,361 


1,336,040 


2,665,260 


2,649,296 


90,923 


43,380' 


3.521,951 


3,401,2-56 


217,353 


170,640 


705,606 


924,774 


1,258,520 


1.431,349 


818,579 


414,100 


86,786 


45,100 


330,551 


420,978 


1,225,1631 
442,014/ 


2,129,213 


23,955 


7,974 


1,054,670 


547,223 


9,118 


535 



Born in the 

State, now 

living in 

the State. 



Born in 

other States, 
now living 
in the State. 



744,146 

1,240 

232,882 

169,904 

6,344 

350,498 

2,088 

94,754 

52,340 

109,554 

1.033.962 

946 

1.189,503 

1.048,575 

428,620 

63,321 

1,081.081 

501,864 

550,629 

629,882 

903,297 

507,268 

126.491 

564,142 

874.006 

1,693 

18,530 

3,356 

242,374 

575,245 

83,175 

2,987,776 

1.028,678 

1.842,313 

37,155 

2,726,712 

125,269 

678,708 

1.027,653 

388,510 

41,426 

, 243,814 

n,162,822 

I 381,297 

6.932 

450,272 

293 



Born in the 

State, now 

living in 

other States. 



242,884 
2,609 
246,563 
180.512 
26,921 
73,317 
7,278 
21,125 
63,106 
73,227 
139,020 
6,168 
835,190 
490,588 
560,708 
252,686 
176,532 
163,224 
27,405 
67,600 
200,735 
408,781 
152,518 
252,589 
625,022 
10,923 
73,715 
20,334 
46,315 
141,908 
3.079 
256,630 
39,654 
450,454 
42,168 
249,930 
36,688 
18,824 
211,551 
367,658 
14,658 
39,582 
48,5871 
43,626 i 
11,999 
239,899 
5,312 



229,554 

400 

54,930 

11,931 

1,235 

136,630 

370 

38,665 

15,207 

14,594 

174,142 

553 

289,907 

320,836 

89,211 

10,769 

403,126 

63.133 

119,205 

175,666 

243,880 

65,720 

12,540 

138,542 

171,242 

504 

4,704 

1,532 

124,972 

148,830 

9,111 

1.073,572 

307,362 

806,983 

6,225 

674,544 

45,371 

256,066 

403,696 

25.590 

3,674 

177,164 

585,094 

1,042 

96,951 

242 



13 



1,321,011, has sent out to other States 403,126 
persons. Of these 92,607 went to Missouri 
and 63,297 to Illinois. Of the 1,194,020 per- 
sons in Iowa only 517,831 were born there. 
These facts, displaying the grand movements 
by which American States are built up, may be 
further illustrated by pointing out where some 
of those born in a single State finally alight. 
From New York there will be found in — 

California 33.426 

Connecticut 28,728 

Illinois 133,290 

Michigan 231,062 

Minnesota 39,845 

Missouri 31,736 

New Jersey , 73,568 

Ohio 67,374 

Pennsylvania ^ 87,700 

Wisconsin „ 135,495 

Vermont 11.235 

After looking at this overflow from a large 

State, let me give an example of a flood not 

so large, but equally swift, from a small State, 

namely, Vermont. Fi'om this State there will 

be found in — 

Illinois 18,501 

Iowa 12,195 

Massachusetts 22,110 

Michigan 14,434 

New Hampshire 12,823 

New York 36,077 

Ohio 9,034 

Wisconsin „ „16,416 

Can there be any facts more conclusively 
proving that the benefits of these national col- 
leges must accrue, not to the States where the 
young men, at much cost, may have been edu- 
cated, but to the States so fortunate as to 
attract them as permanent settlers ? 

■ EVERY STATE AMERICAN. 

The same series of facts disclose the rapidity 
and constancy with which we are being blended 
as one people. If, notwithstanding difl"erences 
in government, religion, and language, there 
is a marked uniformity in the civilization of 
Europe, an equal uniformity will in due time 
become more striking in American States, 
where there are no such diflierences. The 
Roman and Celt, the Saxon and Norman, 
commingle in Englishmen, and if theyare now 
thoroughly fused and homogenious, will not 
time v/ork out a similar result on this side of 
the Atlantic? 

The only obstacle that ever existed to the 
welding together of all parts of our common 
country was slavery, and that having been 
removed, we shall soon develop our character 
as a nation. Any incoherency cannot be per- 
manent. Grouped as we have been, and as 
we shall be, our future destiny is. assimilation 
of the leading features which give tone and 
character to the several States. The records 



show that the blood of one State is no stranger 
in any other. War itself has brought us nearer J 
together, pounded us into cohesion, and com. 
pellcd a better acquaintance. War is in some 
sense magnetic, and when the struggle is over 
it no longer repels, but attracts. Some virtues 
as well as vices must be and are reciprocally 
admitted. All the States are locked arm in 
arm. One cannot be benefited without con- 
ferring benefits upon all. Nor can one be 
injured without giving pain to all. The nation 
is equally interested in the advancement of all 
of its children. Their good name is the com- 
mon property of all. Under these circum- 
stances it is of great importance that the col- 
leges aided and to be aided by the Govern- 
ment shall be of equal capacity and of equal 
scope and character. Vigor and health and 
equal favor must be secured to all. 

The men turned out from these institutions, 
having all acquired some peculiar value, will 
spread out and enrich the whole land, and 
finally will belong not so much to the States 
where educated as to the States honored by 
their subsequent residence and career. Had 
Kentucky any less affection for Clay because 
he was raised in Virginia? Was the elo- 
quence and wit of Corwin diminished by being 
transplanted from Kentucky to Ohio? Was 
Illinois ever less proud of Douglas because 
of his Vermont origin? Did New York ever 
twit Silas Wright with being born in Massa- 
chusetts or of being educated in Vermont? 
When did Massachusetts underrate her great 
"carpet-bagger," Webster, because he was 
born and educated in the Granite State? 
Were the names of Hamilton and Gallatin 
ever bedimmed on account of their foreign 
birth ? These questions are all answered by 
an emphatic negative. Birth-places are acci- 
dents, but homes are the result of design and 
free will. A citizen of any State is now a 
citizen of the United States. Already an 
American has an unmistakable stamp upon 
him which makes him recognizable at home 
and abroad. Doubtless this is largely due 
to the general independent ownership and 
occupation of land and houses, and to other 
prominent and peculiar virtues, but who shall 
Bay lack of culture, also, may not furnish 
some share of the ear-marks ? We are not 
yet finished in the great workshop of Provi- 
dence, and can afford to lose something and 
acquire more, but whatever we are, we shall 
be wholly American. Though all the world 



14 



contributes to our materials, we alone shall 
give them form and national symmetry. 
Shall not each State, then, have the power to 
give equal culture to its people? 

And here I close this branch of the argu- 
ment — not because it is exhausted, but because 
I think enough has been presented — in behalf 
of equal favor to all the States, as proposed in 
the present bill. Let the sister States find 
equal paternal love, however unequal they 
may be in numbers, proportion, or power. 

THE PUBLIC DOMAIN. 

No nation ever held so rich and vast an 
estate in lands as has been and now is held by 
the United States, and nowhere have been 
found lands of equal fertility, with such a 
diversity of soil and climate, to be disposed 
of so cheaply, selling in the morning of our 
history at merely a nominal price ; at noon 
doubled in value by divisions, half and-half, 
with railroads ; at evening made free to all 
actual settlers, and at all times ungrudgingly 
set apart for the endowment of schools and for 
soldiers' bounties. The policy pursued, though 
sometimes pushed rather impetuously, on the 
, whole has largely contributed to the advance- 
ment of the country, and is fairly entitled to 
be set down as enlightened statesmanship. 

But the public domain has been clipped of its 
magnificent proportions ; it is no longer illimit- 
able; its grand and beneficent influences in 
the coming age will be brought to an end, 
and, as its bulk diminishes, its value, like 
the remainder of the sibylline books, is to be 
far more highly prized. When those who 
come after us shall review the disposition 
[ which shall have been made of what may be 
'. called the continental resources of the better 
half of the New World, I am persuaded that 
no part of our policy will show better fruits 
or secure a more grateful approval than that 
j which has sought and still seeks to elevate our 
) whole people by the proper and liberal endow- 
ment of schools and colleges. The time may 
come when "Peace on earth and good will to 
man" maybe triumphant, and martial boun- 
ties be no longer required ; the time may 
come when population will have outrun cheap 
bread, and then we shall no longer teaze the 
world for its spare children, as we shall have 
enough of our own ; the time may come when 
some invention more marvelous than that of 
Fulton or Stephenson will supersede and 
eclipse steam locomotion; but the time will 



never come when Americans will cease to 
prize the advantages of human learning. 
Schools and colleges give to the soul its mas- 
tery over the imbecilities of the body, furnish 
young Samsons with implements to slay "the 
Philistines of ignorance and barbarism," and 
so far as such schools and colleges have been 
established by the aid of even a comparatively 
small portion of the public domain, they will 
stand as monuments more enduring than the 
pyramids, attesting the wisdom of American 
legislation. 

On this line of public policy, however, we 
only travel in the footsteps of our fathers. The 
importance to a free government of a system 
of general education was realized even before 
the adoption of our present Constitution, and 
thus in the Ordinance of 1785 a provision for 
a subsidy was inserted by which the central sec- 
tion of land in every township was granted for 
the support of common schools. Subsequently 
the amount of such grants was doubled ; and, 
including what has been given to colleges and 
universities, would now have a superficial area 
larger than the whole of England, Scotland, 
and Ireland. 

The whole amount of public lands sold 
from the foundation of the Government to 
June 30, 1871, was 161,766,426 acres, but the 
amount granted for railroad subsidies, certified 
and yet to be certified, was 216,074,990 acres, 
which exceeds all the lands actually sold by over 
50,000,000 of acres, and here the country now 
very properly demands a halt. 

We have donated swamp lands to the several 
States where they were supposed to lie to the 
amount of 48,775,990 acres, and have even 
made additional grants to make up deficiencies 
of measure or of title to lands thus given away I 

Beyond all this we have granted for military 
services 62,115,202 acres. 

Notwithstanding all these imperial dona- 
tions, and notwithstanding 20,500,216 acres 
which have been already entered as free home- 
steads by actual settlers, we still own, in com- 
parison with other nations, a domain of unex- 
ampled extent and of inestimable value. Of 
lands unsold and unappropriated we still hold 
1,376,529,562 acres. While it is our duty to 
husband this vast and yet unexpended patri- 
mony, bearing in mind that at least a moiety, 
made up of Alaska and the great American 
desert, may be counted at zero, and while it 
may be our duty to reject the hungry demands 
of too selfish commercial enterprises, can 




there be a safer, more serviceable and desirable 
disposition of a few million acres of the re- 
mainder of the public lands — not amounting 
to four per cent, of what we have left — than to 
devote that much to the purposes of the bill 
now under consideration? This will hardly 
be more than we have donated to single States, 
not so much as to single corporations, and yet 
how much broader will be the diffusion of 
profits, not perhaps directly in dollars and 
cents, but in raising the standard of scientific 
culture in every State of the Union of those 
who are willing to work with their hands, 
of those who will be willing to give their lives 
whenever their country calls ! 

CONCLUSION. 

The facts presented show that we still have 
abundant lands at our disposal, and, whether we 
look at the interest of the dwellers thereon or 
that of the Government, that they are not 
likely to be disposed of more usefully or upon 
sounder principles of national economy. May 
it not also be claimed that the wisdom of 
founding these institutions no longer needs 
vindication? Though hardly out of their 
swaddling clothes they speak for themselves, 
and furnish a cloud of unimpeachable wit- 
nesses testifying to the value of the work be- 
ing done, as well as of the greater work yet to be 
done. If the whole system will tend to increase 
the productions or the profits of agriculture, 
or to enlarge the skill and power of American 
mechanics, or to improve minds now lying 
fallow, or to raise our whole people to a higher 
plane of moral and scientific value, increasing 
both employments and remuneration — and all 
this I have no doubt will be realized — then the 
measure should excite the warmest solicitude 
and have our broadest and heartiest support. 
The curious maps published with our last 
census report show conclusively that wealth is 
uniformly distributed in an inverse ratio to 
illiteracy. 



It is a national work, embracing our whole 
country, costing hardly more than has been 
proposed for a ten years subsidy to lines of 
commerce, and less than has been, perhaps, 
profitably given to a single railroad, but how 
immeasurably higher in its scope and how 
much grander in its far-reaching results 1 By 
so much as the brain is superior to the pocket 
does this measure challenge favor. We seek 
for Americans that knowledge and virtue 
which shall give to them the foremost rank 
among men. Such a rank is the chief luster 
of nations, and is created, not by one man 
sparkling amid benighted thousands, but by 
the masses polished and resplendent in the^ 
aggregate. No one, however humble, should 
be without some ambition to improve himself, 
but a citizen of the United States is, also, 
bound to improve and carry onward the good 
name of his whole country. 

The character of a nation is determined by 
its antecedents. To-day is the father of to- 
morrow. We make the present, and are there- 
fore responsible for the future. Here we plant 
the acorns assured that oaks will grow. 
Here we modestly lay the foundation upon 
which a superstructure will rise to the glory of 
future generations. Let us show that Colum- 
bus did not discover a world too large for a 
free people. A great part of legislative work 
accomplishes its utmost purpose and is obso- 
lete at the end of the year, but here is work 
that we may fondly hope will endure for ages. 
There will be no immediate splendor, but a 
spark will be lighted which may illumine the 
whole land and lift a cloud from the path- 
way of the sons of toil, regardless of ancestry 
or race, that will open to them higher spheres 
of service and honor, give to republican in- 
stitutions a more enlightened and enduring 
support, and make a nation which shall not 
only deserve to live, but deserve to be im- 
mortal. 



Printed at the Congressional Globe Office. 



fiRRARY OF CONGRESS 

liiiiii 



